Rosanna Mah Mah was diagnosed at birth
as an incurable shopaholic and lover of fashion. Digitize all
criticisms to [email protected].
When Aristotle said that imitation is one of man’s
greatest pleasures, he obviously never really understood a
woman.
There is no doubt that handbag shopping is one of the greatest
orgasmic experiences ever known to man or woman, especially when
you know exactly where and how to go about getting what you
want.
The handbag holds the most valued of our beauty investments, the
very tools that lend themselves to the greatest of our artifices:
our cash, credit cards, condoms, lipsticks, compacts.
Recognizing the importance attached to the innocuous handbag,
many designer brands including Prada, Miu Miu, Kate Spade and Nine
West usually offer us a dizzying array of totes, bowler bags,
slip-ons and clutches.
As with all products, handbags come at a price. Along with the
most beautiful bag is the most exquisite design, and sadly, the
heftiest of prices.
For college students, who are keen specialists in the 101s of
price comparison, never in the history of shopping is the theory of
price competition more applicable.
For the typical college student, before every purchase is made,
price comes first to mind and the rule of thumb is a simple one:
the less expensive, the better.
In this investigation of fashion retailers, we will examine two
stores found in the tiny village of Westwood that sell similar, if
not identical, handbags for women at the same prices.
The catch is that the owners of discount retail stores purchase
their goods directly from the distributor and instead of marking up
prices by 150 to 200 percent like most upscale retailers do, they
sustain it at a reasonable standard with their lower mark-up
rule.
By doing so, discount retail stores remove the hidden costs of
the middleman by getting the goods direct from the distributors and
their factories. Hence, these close-to-factory prices remain
fantastically low, serving to benefit tight college budgets.
Catering to our limited budgets is Westwood’s Leatherland,
a surreptitious, sorry-looking store that does not allow itself to
be doomed by its shop name, for it has treasures kept in its
recesses that lie unbeknownst to many UCLA students. Judging from
its understated reputation, those who have frequented Leatherland
obviously know how to keep a good secret to themselves.
One of the best finds in the shop is an elegant black handbag
complimented by a black and white flower, a style that is fashioned
after Sarah Jessica Parker’s fabric flower trend. And priced
at $19.99, fashion for women has never seemed sweeter.
Interestingly enough, a handbag stall known as Renaissance,
located in Westside Pavilion, sells some of the same designer
knockoffs and generically branded handbags found in Leatherland,
at, strangely, quite different prices.
The handbag from Leatherland mentioned above is priced on sale
at Renaissance for $42.99.
Under initial physical inspection, the bags appear to be of the
same quality, with identical “Made in China” tags. It
again appears that Renaissance prices are close to twice that of
Leatherland for the same generic brands.
Perhaps the higher rent and exclusive catering to more
well-to-do clientele in Westside Pavilion may afford credible
explanations to the higher prices set by the owner of
Renaissance.
However, Westside Pavilion is no Rodeo Drive or Beverly Hills,
and Renaissance’s imitation bags are at times pricier than
Nine West bags, which average at $38.
But really, who in their right mind, with the exception of the
rich Westwood female clientele, would blow all that money at
Renaissance when she could get the same stuff down the street for
half the price?
In the case of these two stores, having the same fashion items
marked at vastly different prices seems absurd, because they sell
products virtually indistinguishable in style or quality.
Which brings us to the last important rule of smart shopping:
always compare all goods (whether they be shoes, men, food etc.) to
protect yourself from being unwittingly deceived.